Friday, October 23, 2009

I accomplished a couple of my trip goals:
1) I got up early.
2) I exercised immediately.
3) I blogged (I really want to not fall behind too much).
I figure these are actually pretty important on the first full day as I’m sure to fall behind at some point.

I also dropped off a DeucesCracked t shirt for Stan, the Borgata Poker Room Director (Ruler of the East on 2+2). He’s a really nice guy and he’s pretty happy we have guys putting in volume all over the place (and a fair amount in the high limit room).

A few funny Overheard moments:

Someone in the poker room walked up to BigBadBabar:
‘Sorry if this seems rude, but I just have to ask…were you here about a half year ago and you and a friend ran laps around the table?’
This actually happened: BBB and OnTheRail15 bangaranged the table during a fill and were sternly reprimanded by security – they made it clear that having fun is NOT allowed.

I played a session with a drunk chatty guy on my right who I had been isolating a lot and just generally abusing. Finally we got in a hand where he was contemplating a call:
Drunk guy: What do you have?
Me: Call down.

Random player in BBB’s game.
‘I have the funniest story! The other night there was a crippled guy walking through the poker room!’
[long pause], followed by BBB exploding in laughter
‘And he was carrying bananas!’

BBB and I were headed up to the room and had two funny incidents:

We were in the elevator with an elderly couple. The old gentleman apparently just celebrated a birthday and said he had his leftover cake in a bag.
‘And this bag…this bag is full of money!’
At this point BBB and I looked at each other, started laughing, and later conferred – we were both incredibly tempted to start pulling out wads of $100 bills.

When we got to our floor we passed a few gentlemen in the hallway. I’m not trying to be indecorous here, I just want to make it totally clear – they were flaming. Anyway, we walked past, got to our room two doors down and we heard them say (about us):
‘Did you just see those two fruitcakes walk by?’
BBB and I just laughed as we walked into our room (they were drunk and we were both pretty sure they didn’t think we could hear them).

And here are a couple of hands I played:

Hand 1

Hand 2

Hand 3

Hand 4 (my first royal flush live)

Everyone’s probably aware that the first SCOOP was recently completed at Poker Stars. There were many memorable moments from the tournament series, and I want to address one of the incidents from the $10,000+$300 main event.

Greg Raymer (FossilMan) was eliminated from the tournament when he lost with quads (to higher quads). He made a post complaining about the cooler on the 2+2 forums and about how poorly he’s been running in general (link includes a link to the full thread), which set off a small controversy.

shaniac, a well respected tournament player who’s also known for being outspoken responded vitriolically. Let me first say that I have nothing against shaniac and don’t know much of him outside of his reputation. I have never had any direct interaction with him. In fact, I actually like what I do know of shaniac.

That said, I found shaniac’s post disconcerting. Raymer complained about running badly in recent tournaments (which may very well be true) and shaniac essentially responded that he (Raymer) has run well in life (by winning the World Series of Poker Main Event) and thus has no right to complain ever. The problem with this response is that Raymer’s winning the WSOP has absolutely no bearing on how he will run in the future unless you believe in continuous probability.

I’m certain shaniac (who has enjoyed a large amount of success in his own poker career) is smart enough to NOT believe in continuous probability. So it’s a bit unclear why he’s responding to Raymer in this fashion. If Raymer had complained that he has run bad in life and shaniac had objected I’m sure many people would agree with Shane (myself included). But that is not what happened – Raymer simply complained about running bad lately, which can happen to any poker player, regardless of their past results.

One interesting aspect of this recent incident is that Raymer and shaniac had essentially the same conversation about a year ago. Raymer complained about how he was running, which culminated in him inappropriately tearing up a card. At the time, shaniac’s response was remarkably similar to the one he gave following the SCOOP event.

Given this history and the tone of his posts, it’s hard for me to interpret shaniac’s responses (and repeated claims that Raymer used to be one of his poker heroes) as anything other than patronizing. Absolutely Raymer was wrong to rip up a card. But ultimately I don’t see that he has any less right to complain about running bad than any other player. I seriously doubt that shaniac attacks random posters who complain about variance as vigorously as he does Raymer, which is why I think shaniac is out of line.

(One possibly interesting aside: since continuous probability does not exist, Raymer has just as much right to complain about running bad as any other poker player experiencing an ‘equal’ amount of bad luck, including a losing player (yes, losing players can run badly too).)

Working in the online gaming world has really put me on the front line of online marketing as gaming is so much more advanced than in other industries. I have been thinking a lot recently about not only the future of online poker marketing but online marketing as a whole and what  changes and advancements the next few years will bring.

With this in mind i think back five or so years ago when things were only really kicking off in a big way online. Affiliates were progressing out of there bedrooms and online media was being taken a lot more seriously not only by online companies but bricks and mortar businesses too. It seems strange to think back now knowing that how far online marketing was going to come in a relatively short period of time.

All of this got me thinking of what things are going to be like in another five years time. One of the biggest things that is going to change is the way media campaigns are affiliate performance is viewed. Currently online media buys in gaming are nearly always evaluated by the amount of new customers and revenue they bring in and perhaps rightly so. I think its far to say these two measurements were the two most important attributes to measure performance certainly in what was a new booming industry when there was plenty of new players for everyone.

I believe now the winds are changing and as the industry consolidates and market share becomes more competitive we have lot more to think about when reviewing performance of a campaign. Take for example the twoplustwo forums, one of the biggest and most reputable poker forums around. Nearly all of the major rooms have advertised on twoplustwo at sometime and will have and may still perform very well for them. But now as we move into a new era of online poker i think is a fair assumption to make that a large proportion of twoplustwo users will already have accounts with all of the major poker rooms as these forumites are generally very savvy, experienced players. So why keep advertising here? Well undoubtedly twoplustwo bring in new members everyday and these new members are potentially very valuable users to the operators and if campaigns can bring enough of these new users to there room then that will undoubtedly make the campaign a success. But lets think about the thousands of visitors that twoplustwo receive everyday that already hold and account with you, are really taking full advantage of the reach this banner placement gives us into the life of our current customers? Absolutely not. Think of all the information we already have on these customers. We know if there are a winning or losing player, what limits the play, when they were last active, their name, where they live, hell we even know their first pets name. So lets start using it to our advatage.

Imagine a level of behavioral marketing where simply by using their IP or MAC address to identify the user, a banner can refer to you by your own name in your own language and gives you and offer tailored to you. It could be a re-load bonus for the exact amount you have lost, it could could be a entry into a freeroll for players only from you city. This it truly the tip of the iceberg and I have not doubt that online campaigns will not only be reviewed but their acquisition performance but also by how well they up-sale existing customers. To my knowledge there is not a single gaming company using behavioral marketing to this level but I’m sure that won’t be the case for long and the first company to do so will undoubtedly make a huge splash.

So, da bin ich mal wieder. Viel ist nicht passier – war ja klar. In FL hab ich mich mal rein gelesen und auch angetestet und zusätzlich ein bisserl Stud Content gelesen. Morgen gibt´s das große “H.O.R.S.E. BBV Tunir“-Turnier und sollte mir nix dazwischen kommen, will ich unbedingt mitmischen. Der BBV auf IntelliPoker wird langsam was. Wäre da bloß nicht diese grummelige Katze, die mich immer disst .

Gestern hab ich ein bisserl PLO8 mit ein paar Intellis gezockt und danach gab´s noch ein $3 H.O.R.S.E.. Lief ganz gut und ich wurde gut ausbezahlt (Stud hi und einmal auch bei Razz). Hab dann allerdings alles im Omaha hi/8 verkackt und eine Razz Hand dumm gespielt. Extra dämlich war, dass ich an der Bubble war und als Bubbleboy rausgedonkt bin.

Ich musste mit [A-3]-J den Bring-in zahlen und Bully [Doorcard war ein Ace] hat completed. Ich war mir sicher, das er nur einen Steal ansetzten wollte (alle waren verhältnismäßig tight) und als ein weiterer Spieler [Doorcard war ´ne 7] gecallt hat, habe ich gepusht (hatte noch etwas mehr als den Betrag zum Callen). Ich war der Meinung, dass der Bully den anderen rausdrängen würde und ich somit gute Odds bekommen würde. Aber ich habe keine Ahnung von Razz . Selbst mit Random-Hand des Bullys und einer durchschnittlichen Hand des Anderen, war ich zu sehr Underdog.

Zur Dummheit (Unwissen) kam dann noch Pech, ich hab zwei weitere Jacks bekommen und bin rausgebubbelt. Sunchez – ein Intelli und ich glaube auch PTipler – landete vier Plätze besser und hat mächtig Kohle gemacht ^^.

Auch erfreulich war, dass ich einen alten Kumple aus PA-Zeiten an den PLO5 Tisch getroffen hab. Er arbeitet inzwischen für die Konkurrenz (Strätegschie) und ich hatte seine ICQ# verlegt. Ein bisserl geschnackt und es war ganz lustig.

So, nun mal wieder zu Sex. Ich bin zwar nicht so der Gossip-Fan aber ich bin heute Morgen auf eine dieser Nachrichten gestoßen. Es geht (mal wieder) um Brandi und Sklansky. Keine Ahnung wie lange der Zirkus schon läuft, aber teilweise ist´s nur noch lustig.

Hier das original Posting von Sklansky auf 2+2

- David schreibt wie Brandi ihn nun versucht zu erpressen und will aber eigentlich nur seine Freundin schützen, die halbblind und behindert ist. ….. ganz großes Kino (unbedingt lesen !)

Zitat von David Sklansky:

“For the last 2 1/2 years I have been living with a handicapped 23 year old girl named Sue. She is blind in one eye and partially blind in the other. She is slightly disfigured, slightly autistic, and has frequent seizures. She can’t drive and can’t distinguish left from right. The cause of these things is that she is the product of incest.

[...]

But we did occasionaly get flirtatious and slightly naughty. I once grabbed a vibrator out of my glove compartment and put it between her legs. If that disgusted her she never mentioned it. When I would visit her she often lay down in my lap.
And she was flirtatious to Sue also. Sue hoped I would bring her home to her.“

Hier ist sind die (angeblichen) eMails die David an Brandi geschickt haben soll (NeverWinPoker)

- jetzt wird´s noch lustiger. David gibt Brandi (mal wieder) Geld. Dann kommen noch verwirrende Bilder von Schamhaaren vor:

echt knorke !

Zitat auf Wicked Chops Poker (Link):

“First, let’s just get this out of the way: David Sklansky is freaking 60 years-old. Eventually and at some stage, there comes a time in a man’s life (like when he’s 60) to stop trolling forums (even if it’s your own forum) and posting sorted details of your personal (sex) life with women 30 to 40 years younger than you. Especially when it’s not a sex forum for old dudes but a poker forum. “

Wie auch immer … k.a. was – außer Brandi – David so gerittten hat, dass er so abgeht.

Zu guter letzte noch das “Blowjob-ich-mach-Schluß-mit-Dir”-Video von Brandi (od. jmd. der ihr irgendwie ähnlich sieht): LINK